Trump eyes Barrett for court
WASHINGTON — Barring a last- minute change of heart, President Donald Trump plans to nominate Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative federal appeals court judge, to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s position on the Supreme Court on Saturday, pushing fresh fights over abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act to the center of an already heated presidential campaign.
A Trump campaign official who had been pushing a rival candidate,
Judge Barbara
Lagoa, of Florida, said Friday that Mr. Trump was “99.9%” certain to choose
Judge Barrett, who has been on Mr. Trump’s short list of potential high court picks since he nominated Brett
Kavanaugh in 2018 to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy.
“The president had sort of made a commitment emotionally and in his mind to Amy Barrett,” the official said.
Later in the day, Sen. John Cornyn, R- Texas, a member of the Judiciary Committee, which will handle the nomination, posted a statement to Twitter treating the nomination as a done deal.
“The Senate will begin a thorough review of Judge Barrett’s nomination, a process that shouldn’t be rushed,” Mr. Cornyn wrote. “Despite previous attacks based on her religious faith, I hope Democrats choose not to engage in another character assassination, as they did against Justice Kavanaugh.”
When Judge Barrett was nominated to the appeals court, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D- Calif., and some other Democrats questioned some of her writings, which they believed suggested she saw a
justification for putting Catholic teachings ahead of secular law in some cases.
Mr. Trump had been intrigued by Judge Lagoa, a Latina from Florida. Some advisers believed that choosing a Cuban American for the Supreme Court might help Mr. Trump carry Florida, a must- win state for him in the election.
Ultimately, however, he decided he was more certain that Judge Barrett “is a conservative now and a conservative 20 years from now,” the official said.
Mr. Trump told reporters Friday night after returning from a trip to Florida that he did not meet with Judge Lagoa while he was there.
He said that he had made up his mind but would not confirm that Judge Barrett was the choice.
“I haven’t said it was her, but she is outstanding,” he said.
If confirmed to replace Justice Ginsburg, the court’s most liberal member who died last week, Judge Barrett, 48, would likely give conservatives a solid 6- 3 majority on the court that could leave its imprint for a generation.
Based on her writings as a law professor, antiabortion activists are convinced she would provide the crucial vote on the court to overturn or severely restrict Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. She also has expressed a broad view of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms, potentially providing a vote to strike down some state or local gun restrictions.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R- Ky., has pledged that the Senate will vote on Mr. Trump’s nominee. He has not said publicly that the vote will take place before the election, but Senate leaders have begun making preparations for a fast- track process aimed at making that possible.
Democrats have insisted that the winner of November’s election should be allowed to fill the vacancy on the court — a position that a majority of the public appears to agree with, according to recent polls. A move to confirm Judge Barrett before the election could endanger some incumbent Republicans seeking reelection this year.
Democrats are particularly incensed that Mr. McConnell is moving ahead with the current nomination after he refused to hold hearings or a vote ahead of the 2016 presidential election for Merrick Garland, President Barack Obama’s pick to replace Justice Antonin Scalia. At the time, he argued that voters should have a say in the future of the court.
But Republican leaders, who fear they could lose their Senate majority and the White House in the election, appear to have decided that strengthening a conservative majority on the court that could last for decades is worth the potential political price.
Judge Barrett, given her youth and sterling conservative credentials, appears to many Republicans as a near- perfect candidate.
Early in her judicial career, Judge Barrett clerked for Justice Scalia, considered the leading conservative on the court for three decades before he died in 2016.
Like Justice Scalia, she is considered an originalist, a philosophy whose adherents believe they are upholding the founders’ original intent when interpreting the Constitution.